What's at stake in the Masterpiece Cakeshop Supreme Court decision

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TOM LAMPRECHT: Harry, I’d like to take you back to a subject we covered about a week ago. It was the oral arguments concerning Jack Phillips’ Masterpiece Cakeshop that went before the Supreme Court.

David French wrote a piece in the National Review entitled “Four Promising Takeaways from the Masterpiece Cakeshop Oral Argument.” He makes some interesting observations about what the Justices asked and where their questions might lead as we await a decision by the Supreme Court.

DR. REEDER: Not only him, but John Stonestreet, as well as a couple of other opinion piece writers, they all make their case and then they qualify it by saying many people have been terribly disappointed and misled by trying to read the oral arguments.

And, most poignantly, not the presentation, but the interruptions. And the Supreme Court Justices, by the way, love to interrupt in a way to try to find out is the lawyer really on their point or not. Well, what was really interesting, of course, was Justice Ginsberg’s question in the oral arguments, “Well what if a homosexual couple had come in just to buy something off the shelf?”

Well, immediately, the lawyer said to Justice Ginsberg what Jack Phillips has been saying all along, “Well not only would I sell it, I have sold many of my items to those who would be practicing homosexuality or even those who have been engaged in a same-sex marriage.”

When you are asked to shape and sculpt a cake for a particular purpose that becomes a matter of artistic expression which, historically, has been covered under the issue of free speech and that you are not coerced to engaged in speech that you don’t want to make, nor are you prevented from speech that you desire to make.

Justice Kennedy the pivotal vote

Where everyone really is focused, Tom, is upon Justice Kennedy because he is pretty well considered the swing vote on this. And both sides look with expectation – the side of those who are declaring that Jack Phillips does not have the right to withhold his participation in the ceremonial development and expression of a same-sex marriage cake that he was requested to make are saying that it’s a matter that he’s hiding behind the freedom of religion that’s really bigotry.

In other words, all of these thousands of years that we have believed that marriage is one man and one woman for one life has actually been a veil of bigotry – that somehow, we have been enlightened now that sexual behavior is now a civil right and a part of one’s being.

And you’re going to find that coming forward through this argument called “the argument of dignity.” In other words, you are denying someone’s dignity if you do not affirm and celebrate in their sexual choices.

Your sexual behavior is not your being, your sexual behavior is something that you’re doing. And the doing reflects your being and that is made in the image of God. You have the ability to do sex as God designed it to be done, which is in the context of a marriage.

Well, interestingly, Justice Kennedy, who has also been an advocate of “gay rights” has also been an advocate of freedom of speech. His question pointed in that direction because he particularly focused on the civil rights commission and their denigrating statements concerning Mr. Phillips’ choice.

And when Mr. Kennedy pointed out that not only did one, but two of these commissioners make such statements declaring that Mr. Phillips’ embracing of his right in terms of what he should speak and what he can’t speak is a matter of bigotry, that is exactly what Justice Kennedy questioned is that they would question the dignity of Mr. Phillips concerning his embracing of the right of free speech.

TOM LAMPRECHT: Justice Kennedy asked the question, “Commissioner Rice says, ‘Freedom of religion is used to justify discrimination is a despicable piece of rhetoric.’” Kennedy asked about that and then, also, Justice Gorsuch picked up and ran with that, as well.

DR. REEDER: And so you’ve got to connect the dots, here. Jack Phillips is saying, “My freedom of speech right means that I don’t have to participate in something that I religiously believe is inappropriate.”

Justice Kennedy, when he wrote in the Obergefell Decision, he wrote in that the fact that the people’s right to believe that it is wrong must be honored and if they believe that it is a wrong behavior, they must not be coerced to support it.

And so now we’re about to find out is Justice Kennedy not only for the fact that homosexuality should not be banned, but he is also on record as saying that those who religiously disagree with homosexuality should not be required to participate. And we’re about to find out, does he believe his own statement in original opinions that he has written concerning these issues.

TOM LAMPRECHT: Harry, all of these authors of these different articles that we’ve referenced today have said be careful when you try to look into the crystal ball and try to make a prediction, because oftentimes even though the questions the justices ask might lead you down a road to one conclusion, oftentimes you’re disappointed. Dare you go out and speculate?

DR. REEDER: I’m loathed to speculate right now. I’m praying. I’m praying that this is a broad opinion that affirms the free speech and free practice of religion of Mr. Phillips. Not a narrow one that is just associated with this one wedding cake.

I have two concerns. Of course, obviously, that his right to freedom of speech in terms of being coerced in his artistic expression to do that which he does not believe is right and, therefore, an attack upon freedom of religion – that we have the freedom to believe that sexuality in Christianity is to be within the bounds within a heterosexual marriage – that is what I am praying the decision is going to uphold.

Not just a narrow one in terms of wedding cakes itself, which means we’ll be back in the Supreme Court very soon on some other issue. I’m praying for that. I do believe Justice Kennedy is going to be the pivotal vote where he is going to come out.

I think those who affirm the First Amendment should be somewhat encouraged from what he’s saying because he went so far as to say when one of the lawyers, Mr. Cole, who is declaring that Jack Phillips’ belief is an attack against their dignity, it was Justice Kennedy in the oral arguments that said, “What they do sexually is not their identity, it’s what they’re doing. Sex is what you’re doing, it’s not who you are.”

He is the one who himself affirms that sexuality is not a matter of being, it is a matter of doing and so, as I said, my hope is that Justice Kennedy is going to uphold his previous declarations that laws against homosexual practice should not preclude freedom of speech and freedom of religion within Christianity, thereby, coercing Christians to artistically support homosexuality and same-sex marriage and/or compromise our beliefs that God has revealed very clearly that sex is a gift from Him, sacred, to be used in the boundaries of marriage between a man and a woman committed for life. Let me just say I have more hope now after the oral arguments than I did before.

Dr. Harry L. Reeder III is the Senior Pastor of Briarwood Presbyterian Church in Birmingham.

This podcast was transcribed by Jessica Havin. Jessica is editorial assistant for Yellowhammer News. Jessica has transcribed some of the top podcasts in the country and her work has been featured in a New York Times Bestseller.